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Brandon Franchak's education is almost $2,700 short. So are the educations of Destiny Babcock, A.J. Gajewski, Emily Moser and the rest of their classmates in the sixth-grade music class at Carbondale Area Elementary School.

In the first two budgets during Gov. Tom Corbett's administration and under the budget proposed last week, Carbondale stands to receive a total reduction of $4.4 million, compared to funding during the last year of Gov. Ed Rendell's administration. That is a three-year state funding reduction of almost $2,700 per student, according to a Times-Tribune analysis.

The district, one of the poorest in Northeastern Pennsylvania, has one of the largest losses per student in the state. The music program has been cut. Class size has gone from 20 or 21 to 27 or 28 students per class. After-school tutoring has been eliminated.

Similar cuts have been made across the region's 37 school districts, and the poorer the district, the more has been cut, according to the paper's analysis. The districts in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties are facing a $149 million three-year reduction in state funding. Statewide, almost $2.5 billion will have been cut in three years if the budget Gov. Tom Corbett proposed last week is approved.

The proposed 2013-14 budget increases total funding in Northeastern Pennsylvania by $6.8 million. Districts statewide would see $90 million, or a 1.7 percent increase.

Officials welcome the funding but say it is far from keeping up with increases in salaries, health care, pensions and utilities - and will do nothing to increase academic programs or rigor.

The 2011-12 education budget, the first by Corbett, cut education funding by almost $1 billion statewide. Money for tutoring and reimbursement for districts for charter school costs were eliminated. The Accountability Block Grant program, which most districts use for full-day kindergarten, was cut from $259 million to $100 million.

In 2012-13, the current fiscal year, those cuts were not restored. The Corbett administration blames the drop in education funding on the loss of $1.1 billion in federal stimulus money, which the Rendell administration used for education, and claims the state's share of basic education funding has increased under Corbett.

As school pension costs have skyrocketed, the state has also increased its allocation. The state pays districts for about half of their costs. In five years, pension contributions for area school districts are projected to increase by $172.9 million.

The Times-Tribune's analysis looked at 2010-11 funding levels for basic education, accountability block grants, charter school reimbursements and the educational assistance program, which funded tutoring, and compared the funding amounts with the 2011-12 and 2012-13 budgets and the proposed 2013-14 budget. The analysis used districts' average daily memberships to determine the loss per student.

Regardless of who or what is to blame for the drop in funding, superintendents say one thing is certain: they are receiving far less than they received three years ago.

Across the state, 70 percent of school districts have increased class sizes, 44 percent have reduced elective course offerings and 35 percent have reduced or eliminated programs that provide extra help or tutoring for struggling students, according to a survey released last fall by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials and the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators.

The more a district relies on funding from the state, the greater the effect of the cuts. The poorer the district, the greater the cuts per student.

Carbondale, which receives almost 60 percent of its budget from state sources, has a potential three-year loss per student of almost $2,659. More than 64 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Abington Heights, a far more affluent district that only relies on about one-quarter of its budget from the state, is looking at a $466 three-year loss per student.

Scranton is looking at a three-year loss per student of $1,789. The total loss over three years is $15.9 million.

"That's unbelievable," Superintendent William King said.

Counseling services have been scaled back, and tutoring programs have been eliminated. About 40 teaching positions have been lost through attrition.

"There are so many things that funding could have gone to, to support kids and to support learning," King said.

shofius@timesshamrock.com, @hofiushallTT

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